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Welcome to the postmodern world of high-tech antitrust where big is once again bad, lofty profit margins are a wakeup call to government regulators, executives are brought to heel for aggressively worded e-mails, pricing too high is monopolistic, pricing too low is predatory, propping up politically wired competitors is the surreptitious aim, bundling products that consumers want is illegal, and successful companies are rewarded by dismemberment. That's the Orwellian world in which Microsoft finds itself, a year into probably the most important and manifestly the least justified antitrust crusade of our generation.

Antitrust law aside, the principle of the matter is simple: Microsoft created its operating system and has a right to sell the system as it sees fit. But antitrust law pays little attention to such niceties as property rights. Instead, the reigning shibboleths are economic efficiency and consumer welfare. The antitrust questions, therefore, are whether Microsoft has a monopoly, whether it's misusing its market power, and whether government can find a cure that isn't worse than the disease. The answers are no, no, and no.

Microsoft is behaving not like a monopolist but like a company whose very survival is at stake. Its prices are down and its technology is struggling to keep pace with an explosion of software innovation. Facing competition from new operating systems, consumer electronics, and Web-based servers, Microsoft now operates in a world where anyone running a browser will soon have the same capabilities as today's Windows user.

Meanwhile, antitrust officials are preoccupied with antiquated notions--tying arrangements, exclusionary contracts, predatory pricing, and a host of other purported infractions--all wholly irrelevant, unless the real purpose, of course, is to pacify rent-seeking executives trying to attain in the political arena what they have been unable to attain in the market. It's time for our government to acknowledge that bankrupt antitrust doctrine is destructive of a modern Internet economy.
Full Text of Policy Analysis No. 352 (PDF, 22 pgs, 124 Kb)

Antitrust law aside, the principle of the matter is simple: Microsoft created its operating system and has a right to sell the system as it sees fit. But antitrust law pays little attention to such niceties as property rights. Instead, the reigning shibboleths are economic efficiency and consumer welfare. The antitrust questions, therefore, are whether Microsoft has a monopoly, whether it's misusing its market power, and whether government can find a cure that isn't worse than the disease. The answers are no, no, and no.

Microsoft is behaving not like a monopolist but like a company whose very survival is at stake. Its prices are down and its technology is struggling to keep pace with an explosion of software innovation. Facing competition from new operating systems, consumer electronics, and Web-based servers, Microsoft now operates in a world where anyone running a browser will soon have the same capabilities as today's Windows user.

Meanwhile, antitrust officials are preoccupied with antiquated notions--tying arrangements, exclusionary contracts, predatory pricing, and a host of other purported infractions--all wholly irrelevant, unless the real purpose, of course, is to pacify rent-seeking executives trying to attain in the political arena what they have been unable to attain in the market. It's time for our government to acknowledge that bankrupt antitrust doctrine is destructive of a modern Internet economy.

Full Text of Policy Analysis No. 352 (PDF, 22 pgs, 124 Kb)

Just a note, as it kind of got lost in the Sept news...

This article dated September 25th, 2001, indicates in part:

"Unanimous House Agrees To Pay U.N. Dues
The House of Representatives yesterday unanimously approved legislation that would provide $582 million to pay back dues to the United Nations, a reflection of how the political landscape has been altered by the terrorist attacks two weeks ago, according to The Washington Post.

For months, conservatives such as House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) had blocked the payment of U.N. arrears, but those lawmakers abandoned their opposition in light of the strikes in New York and Washington"

Welcome to the postmodern world of high-tech antitrust where big is once again bad, lofty profit margins are a wakeup call to government regulators, executives are brought to heel for aggressively worded e-mails, pricing too high is monopolistic, pricing too low is predatory, propping up politically wired competitors is the surreptitious aim, bundling products that consumers want is illegal, and successful companies are rewarded by dismemberment. That's the Orwellian world in which Microsoft finds itself, a year into probably the most important and manifestly the least justified antitrust crusade of our generation.

Antitrust law aside, the principle of the matter is simple: Microsoft created its operating system and has a right to sell the system as it sees fit. But antitrust law pays little attention to such niceties as property rights. Instead, the reigning shibboleths are economic efficiency and consumer welfare. The antitrust questions, therefore, are whether Microsoft has a monopoly, whether it's misusing its market power, and whether government can find a cure that isn't worse than the disease. The answers are no, no, and no.

Microsoft is behaving not like a monopolist but like a company whose very survival is at stake. Its prices are down and its technology is struggling to keep pace with an explosion of software innovation. Facing competition from new operating systems, consumer electronics, and Web-based servers, Microsoft now operates in a world where anyone running a browser will soon have the same capabilities as today's Windows user.

Meanwhile, antitrust officials are preoccupied with antiquated notions--tying arrangements, exclusionary contracts, predatory pricing, and a host of other purported infractions--all wholly irrelevant, unless the real purpose, of course, is to pacify rent-seeking executives trying to attain in the political arena what they have been unable to attain in the market. It's time for our government to acknowledge that bankrupt antitrust doctrine is destructive of a modern Internet economy.
Full Text of Policy Analysis No. 352 (PDF, 22 pgs, 124 Kb)

Welcome to the postmodern world of high-tech antitrust where big is once again bad, lofty profit margins are a wakeup call to government regulators, executives are brought to heel for aggressively worded e-mails, pricing too high is monopolistic, pricing too low is predatory, propping up politically wired competitors is the surreptitious aim, bundling products that consumers want is illegal, and successful companies are rewarded by dismemberment. That's the Orwellian world in which Microsoft finds itself, a year into probably the most important and manifestly the least justified antitrust crusade of our generation.

Antitrust law aside, the principle of the matter is simple: Microsoft created its operating system and has a right to sell the system as it sees fit. But antitrust law pays little attention to such niceties as property rights. Instead, the reigning shibboleths are economic efficiency and consumer welfare. The antitrust questions, therefore, are whether Microsoft has a monopoly, whether it's misusing its market power, and whether government can find a cure that isn't worse than the disease. The answers are no, no, and no.

Microsoft is behaving not like a monopolist but like a company whose very survival is at stake. Its prices are down and its technology is struggling to keep pace with an explosion of software innovation. Facing competition from new operating systems, consumer electronics, and Web-based servers, Microsoft now operates in a world where anyone running a browser will soon have the same capabilities as today's Windows user.

Meanwhile, antitrust officials are preoccupied with antiquated notions--tying arrangements, exclusionary contracts, predatory pricing, and a host of other purported infractions--all wholly irrelevant, unless the real purpose, of course, is to pacify rent-seeking executives trying to attain in the political arena what they have been unable to attain in the market. It's time for our government to acknowledge that bankrupt antitrust doctrine is destructive of a modern Internet economy.
Full Text of Policy Analysis No. 352 (PDF, 22 pgs, 124 Kb)

Microsoft Redux: Anatomy of a Baseless Lawsuit

Microsoft Redux: Anatomy of a Baseless Lawsuit

Hughes Aircraft Company now has a new identification technology involving a syringe-implantable transponder. Described as a "safe and inexpensive" worker identification technology, the procedure involves planting a tiny microchip under the skin. The chip contains a 10-character alphanumeric identification code that can never be duplicated. The microchip is read by an electronic scanner -- the type that reads the price tag on the food you buy at the grocery store. The ID card is hardly a novel idea. The concept once surfaced in a Reagan cabinet meeting in 1981. Then-Attorney General William French Smith argued that a perfectly harmless ID card system would be necessary to reduce illegal immigration. A second cabinet member asked: why not tattoo a number on each American's forearm? According to Martin Anderson, the White House domestic policy adviser at the time, Reagan blurted out "My god, that's the mark of the beast." As Anderson wrote, "that was the end of the national identification card" during the Reagan years. H.R. 231 is proof that bad ideas never die in Washington; they just wait for another day.

Scientists are so fascinated with the possibility that they can that they never stop to think if they should.

Traffic Deaths due to Cell Phone Drivers continue to rise, as the total dead begins to approach the figure posted by Mohammed Atta. And still we have hands-free device laws in exactly zero states.

Enter Handspring with a slick, convenient cellphone integrated with a PDA. A live wire for streaming Internet content, beamed directly to the driver's seat of the person pushing a Chevy Suburban down the freeway ahead of you in rush hour traffic. A cell phone which requires two hands to operate in PDA mode is now in the hands of the millions of American drivers who refuse to stop pinning a cell phone to their ear while driving.

Please understand that I'm not attempting to bash the technology. I only wish that companies like Handspring would consider the impact of their actions before unleashing something like this on innocent commuters. Anyone with a rush hour commute knows that people irresponsible enough to weave through traffic talking on a cell phone exist and are numerous. And they will buy this phone, take both hands off the wheel, and practice "Graffiti" at 60 miles per hour.

Does anyone know how hard it would be to make a cell phone deactivate itself if it starts moving faster than 40 miles per hour? Could you perhaps triangulate the three nearest PCS towers?

You are stuck in the rhetoric of the publishing and recording industries, I'm afraid.

As other posters have pointed out, you do not have any natural right to your work after you have released it to the public. As long as you keep it to yourself, you have complete control. But once you let another person have a copy, all natural right to that work is gone. He has the freedom to do with it whatever he likes, you do not have the freedom to tell him what he can and cannot do.

Our law, however, permits you to have limited time copyright to control its use (in practice, it is unlimited, but technically it is limited). The only reason copyright exists is to provide incentive for further creation.

As Tom Bell of the Cato Institute so succinctly put it in a 1998 speech: Statutory protections of intellectual property do not protect natural rights; they encroach on them. Stallman's ideas are not associated with communism (the Cato Institute is about as right wing as you can get). It is about freedom of information, no matter who created that information. No communist regime that ever existed promoted such an ideal.

The authors of copyright in the constitution, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, would have shuddered at the term "intellectual property." They were very specific in saying that ideas and information cannot be property. You cannot claim a natural right to it. That includes books, research, computer code, music, movies, etc.

In Jefferson's words: If nature has made one thing less susceptible than all other of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea.

In fact ... it's the government that took their monopoly away.

Before the government "took away" the AT&T monopoly, it created the AT&T monopoly. The telephone industry was highly competetive from 1893/4, when the original Bell patents expired, until 1913, when the government got involved. It went downhill from there. This paper provides a good history of the telephone industry and concludes "[t]he actions of legislators and regulators, both deliberate and accidental, led to the creation of the Bell monopoly."

Far from getting in the way, the truth backs up what you call "good libertarian propaganda."

National ID Cards: New Technologies, Same Bad Idea

I should mention that this is discussed in the Cato Institute's Daily Dispatch today. It points to a longer discussion (from 10/11/01 when Mr. Gregg was proposing the legislation) that you may find relevant.

I should mention that this is discussed in the Cato Institute's Daily Dispatch today. It points to a longer discussion (from 10/11/01 when Mr. Gregg was proposing the legislation) that you may find relevant.

I should mention that this is discussed in the Cato Institute's Daily Dispatch today. It points to a longer discussion (from 10/11/01 when Mr. Gregg was proposing the legislation) that you may find relevant.

While it didn't stay that high for long, it did hover at an average of about 5% for that entire period. if A1=100, A2=105...Then in 1990, what was worth 100$ in 1980 was now only worth only 45$.

Maybe you should break out a calculator. 5% inflation over 10 years is (1.05)^10 = 1.63, not 2.0 (or more, since you claim $45).

Beyond that, the Reagan tax cuts didn't take effect until 1982. Please review this chart of the Consumer Price Index. From 1980 to 1990, the inflation rate is (130.7/82.4)^(1/10) = 4.72% annualized rate. From 1982 to 1990, the inflation rate is (130.7/96.5)^(1/8) = 3.86% annualized rate.

The simpler way to look at it is that from 1982-1990, the CPI increased (130.7/96.5) = 35%, while government revenues increased 67% (which admittedly is also not 2.0).

Incidently, here's a Cato institute study that I googled. Lots of interesting numbers.

You seem to have very strong opinions, and expect people to believe them simply by insulting others, and being generally mean spirited:P

No, I expect people to believe them because they're right. :)

I believe the US Government would be completely right to invade Afghanistan with massive and overwhelming force.

Strong as my opinions are, I have to say that I simply don't know what the best strategy for Afghanistan is. My anger says that we should just go balls to the wall, invade the country and take care of business, but my brain says that it's probably prudent to surgical strike them to death. It should be extremely interesting to see how Bush handles this. The one thing you have to give him credit for is patience. He obviously knows that a lot of people think he's a dufus, and the easiest thing to do would be to order air strikes just to show people that he's "doing something" and try to enhance his image. I think it's remarkable that he obviously doesn't care about his image and is really taking the time and trying to do something that will actually be effective.

I should probably not mention that I think a massive tax cut to stimulate the economy, so we can collect even more taxes in the future, is probably not the best of ideas. I mean, we didn't rack up massive government debt in the 1982-1992 period because of that or anything.

I suppose it never fails to amaze me how when one of a certain political bent just believes whatever propaganda that's presented. Rather than simply listening to Gore's campaign speeches, how about looking at the numbers yourself?

SUPPLY-SIDE TAX CUTS AND THE TRUTH ABOUT THE REAGAN ECONOMIC RECORD

You'll find a pretty good run down of both the good and bad about what really happened during the Reagan years concerning the econom. More importantly, what happens to the revenue coming into the government when taxes are lowered. That, or you could take the other pill and believe whatever you want to believe.

This is a much better article on this topic, if you ask me. Shit, even if you don't ask me, it is still a better article on the topic.

Cyber-Surveillance in the Wake of 9/11

"It's important to note with respect to the coordinated terrorist attack that this was not an Internet crime per se. It could have taken place without coordination across the Internet."

One other thing, didn't Katz just cover this topic? Whatever.

• avoid entanglement in regional conflicts or civil wars that do not have a direct and substantial relevance to vital American security interests;
• focus the attention and resources of the intelligence agencies on terrorism and other serious national security threats instead of phony or exaggerated problems such as economic espionage; and
• consider state-sponsored terrorist attacks against American civilians acts of war, not a law enforcement issue, and respond, in cases where there is clear and compelling evidence, with a formal declaration of war. The whole chapter is available here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-45.hml

This is, of course, absurd, because the neutron bomb's primary purpose was for tactical and operational, rather than strategic, use. The idea is that if you can affect your enemy over the same area with a 1 kiloton neutron weapon as with a 13 kiloton fission weapon, you can essentially "manage" the nuclear battlefield better.

The neutron bomb concept came out of a rethinking of US defense policy, a reorientation towards a strategy oriented around actually fighting the Soviet Union at the point of attack, rather than relying on the Massive Retaliation policy of the 1970s.

Although eventually the DoD found other methods of answering Soviet numerical superiority (deep strikes from the air, force multipliers like the M1 tank, precision guided artillery, cruise missiles, and so on), the neutron bomb was never seriously considered as a means of "saving the industry". Even generals know about radiation. ;-)

See here for a bit more about the neutron bomb in the context of overall defense planning.

A bit about legal control over radio frequency -

The frequency spectrum is considered a "natural resource" and is public property. The FCC was granted control over the allocation of this spectrum in the Communications Act of 1934. You can license frequencies from the FCC, but you do not gain ownership of them. Location has nothing to do with the control over the frequency spectrum. It is within the FCC's authority to limit the rights to monitor signals within certain frequency bands (whether or not it is enforceable is another matter).

I am not necessarily advocating the state of affairs, but it is the law of the land. Since I am of course oversimplifying, you may want to check out the issues raised here.

It's a relief to find out that you know more about libertarianism than leading libertarians themselves. Whew! I was misguided there for a while. For example, from the Libertarian Party website:

We further hold that the owners of property have the full right to control, use, dispose of, or in any manner enjoy, their property without interference, until and unless the exercise of their control infringes the valid rights of others. We oppose all violations of the right to private property, liberty of contract, and freedom of trade done in the name of national security. We also condemn current government efforts to regulate or ban the use of property in the name of aesthetic values, riskiness, moral standards, cost-benefit estimates, or the promotion or restriction of economic growth. We specifically condemn all government interference in the operation of private businesses, such as restaurants and airlines, by either requiring or prohibiting designated smoking or non-smoking areas for their employees or their customers.

And from the Cato Institute website:

Policymakers shouldn't ban any category of technology as the marketplace works through these difficult issues. Likewise, force should not be used to "aid" the sharing of IP, such as emerging calls for the imposition of compulsory licensing requirements on record companies. Such forced "contracts," with their accompanying price controls and regulatory dynamics, have no place in a nascent industry that desperately needs to embrace voluntary deals. If companies go too far in locking up information, other companies (and consumers) have the option of dealing with less-restrictive entrepreneurs.

Clearly the Cato Institute and the Libertarian Party have been misleading me as to the true nature of libertarianism. Thanks for setting the record straight.

-- Frank

Quite true. The experiment of throwing money at schools to make them better has been tried; it didn't work.

Summary from the above link:
"For more than a decade, the Kansas City district got more money per pupil than any other of the 280 major school districts in the country. Yet in spite of having perhaps the finest facilities of any school district its size in the country, nothing changed. Test scores stayed put, the three-grade-level achievement gap between blacks and whites did not change, and the dropout rate went up, not down." It's a fascinating story; if you like the popular summary article I highly recommend reading the full Cato study too; you can find that here.

Quite true. The experiment of throwing money at schools to make them better has been tried; it didn't work.

Summary from the above link:
"For more than a decade, the Kansas City district got more money per pupil than any other of the 280 major school districts in the country. Yet in spite of having perhaps the finest facilities of any school district its size in the country, nothing changed. Test scores stayed put, the three-grade-level achievement gap between blacks and whites did not change, and the dropout rate went up, not down." It's a fascinating story; if you like the popular summary article I highly recommend reading the full Cato study too; you can find that here.

This shows the lack of judgment that has become endemic in federal law enforcement. The Cato Institute has been arguing for quite a while that the massive increases in federal law enforcement budgets over the past fifteeen years, with no matching increase in crime, would encourage the feds to prosecute things that they previously would have had the sense to ignore, just to make work. Seems to be happening.

California screwed up de-regulation by making it impossible for utilities to pass on rate increases to customers, while at the same time California electric companies were prohibited from entering into long-term contracts for purchasing power. Try reading California Energy Crisis: What's going on, Who's to Blame, and What to do.

I know what "Basic IP Dialtone" is. The difference between IP and voice is that IP text data can be analyzed by machine. If you don't think the right-wing and left-wing nuts would try to clamp down on porn going over your "Basic IP Dialtone", you must have been asleep for the last few years as we have fought off Internet censorship law after law, not to mention mandatory filtering at schools and libraries!

1.We used to have these rights as consumers. Fair use, and all that. We used to be able to copy records to casettes. These rights are being taken away one by one.

Historic point, made more irrelevant by the change in media (digital media, CDs, DVDs). Fair use as in your example of copying records to cassettes is applicable because the copy will never equal the original in quality. Ditto for VHS/Beta consumer media.

2."You have the option not to buy this" - You'd have to be a hermit to live without music or movies. In essence, this is a monopoly, certainly a cartel - and being well trained in economics as you appear to be, you will know that different rules apply there.

And there is *nothing* inherently wrong with a monopoly... The recording and motion picture industry have immense profitability because they were savvy in business, despite some of the means (copyright laws, etc.) that they accomplished this.

It is *wrong* to punish an industry for doing something well.

Certainly different rules apply to ebooks, motion pictures, recorded music - these are generally intended for *entertainment* purposes. They're hardly necessities...

3."IP" - the proceeds evidently majorly do not go to the actual artists, who should own the IP.

Says who? In the record industry, lots of money is spent on promotion and distribution, a lot more than you may surmise...

In addition, it is the artists' responsibility to ensure adequate and fair compensation for their intellectual property. Remember, actors and musicians have unions/trade groups/guilds available to them. If these groups are weak or unwilling to support them, perhaps they should find a different profession?

Nobody is forcing them to choose their employment.

Remember, it is freedom and property rights that advances humanity and promotes yet more freedom. The free market can and does promote excellence and culls inferiority.

That you apply different standards of "freedom" is misleading and hypocritical. Those states that did so were socialist states, and hardly free.

www.lp.org

www.cato.org

www.moraldefense.com

Fair use from whom? Let me ask you this - who produced the content? Who offered it for use under license/copyright? Now let's look at this from the IP producers' and market point of view.

When I buy a CD or a DVD, I feel I have the right to listen to it/watch it on any device I like. So, I repeat: I paid! Now I want to listen to my CDs on the MP3-player, and watch the DVDs on my PC.

You have the *freedom* NOT to pay for said CD or DVD if you do not agree to the terms of the copyright/license/usage restrictions. The IP holders did not _force_ this upon you.

That's not contrary to IP rights.

Yes it is. The IP holder can and should dictate the terms of usage of his/her IP.

If the potential user does not like the terms of usage, he/she has the freedom NOT to purchase/license said IP.

Yes, the industry is afraid of this.

The industry is understandably trying to protect their investments and profits - when your revenue stream is threatened, wouldn't you try to protect it?

Like I mentioned in the previous post, these IP holders also have a responsibiity to investors and shareholders to maintain and improve performance.

IP protection via encryption, usage restrictions, etc. are all viable and acceptable means of maintaining revenue.

Again, if you don't like this, don't patronize the IP holders. They're not restricting your freedom to choose.

If consumers don't like this, the market will react. This is how the free market works.

www.lp.org

www.cato.org

www.moraldefense.com

Aren't we all forgetting something here? That is, content producers have _every_ right to protect their intellectual property. IP is still property, and content producers have a fiduciary DUTY to their shareholders to PROTECT their property.

Like it or not, IP is profitable and laws to protect that property are likewise just.

This bickering over the "morals" or "ethics" regarding IP remind me a lot of the environmental movement - crass restrictions and over-regulation of one's property and fruits of his/her effort by "well-meaning" (read - jealous, spiteful, envious) zealots that have no right meddling in another's affairs.

Please think about this if you _truly_ respect freedom.

www.lp.org

www.cato.org

www.moraldefense.com

I just went to the CATO institute search site and there in no mention of either Sklyarov or the DMCA.

The silence is remarkable -- and deafening.

All you republicans should take note of this.

Economic Freedom in Sub-Saharan Africa says: ...Sub-Saharan Africa remains by far the least economically free of all regions: None of the 36 countries graded received a "free" rating, and only five--Benin, Mali, Botswana, Namibia and Mauritius--were found to be "mostly free." The decline in Zimbabwe's score caused it to slip into the "repressed" category, where it joined Guinea-Bissau. South Africa's score worsened as well, with increased government regulations bumping it to the "mostly unfree" category, along with 28 other African nations.

The editors suspended grading for six African nations--Angola, Burundi, Congo, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Sudan--due to the unreliability of data caused by either their civil unrest or "prolonged state of anarchy." They will be included in future editions once "political stability returns."

Africa Betrayed: George Ayittey, a native of Ghana, recalls the exhilaration that swept the continent when colonialism ended. But soon native African leaders began plundering their nations' economies, imprisoning political opponents, and blocking economic progress.

Although those leaders rejected capitalism because of its mistaken identification with colonialism, Africa actually has a tradition of markets and decentralization. Ayittey lays out that tradition before describing the Colonial Era, the march toward tyranny, the de facto apartheid, the military regimes, the intellectual repression, the corruption, and the dubious conduct of the West.

Unfortunately, a strong economy is the best thing for the environment and if Kyoto Protocol proponents manage to cripple our economies then we're all doomed.

High powered economies (like the United States) and rich citizens (like the United States) create people that both care about the environment and have the means to do something about it.

Our high powered economy allows us to do expensive things like research Fusion Power. This research can't happen in a country with a crippled economy.

Yes, we're burning the candle at both ends right now, but by doing so we're buying a better future.

How far back to the rabid environmentalists want us to go? 100 years? 200? 1000? The world was never an environmental paradise. Our best bet for creating a new Eden is to keep on like we're going, develop cleaner limitless power sources and then clean up the mess we've made in a few decades. You can't bake a cake without breaking some eggs.

Peter

For further reading, I'd suggest:
Kyoto Policy Analysis

Well, the thing to look at here are deaths per some number of users. This way you get an idea of how dangerous a drug is, independent of of the total number of users. I hope that this table formats OK:

Drug | Users | Deaths per Year | Deaths per 100,000
Tobacco | 60 million | 390,000 (a) | 650
Alcohol | 100 million | 150,000 (b) | 150
Heroin | 500,000 | 400 (c) | 80 (400)
Cocaine | 5 million | 200 (c) | 4 (20)

The meaning of the stuff in parenthesis is explained in this article. Even if we accept the higher numbers in parenthesis, it is clear that both heroin and cocaine are responsable for the deaths of a smaller percentage of their users than tobacco.

With legalization the deaths from currently illegal drugs would decrease. Many deaths are because the drug being used is of uncertain purity and concentration. So, even under prohibition with uncertain purity and contents cocaine results in a smaller percentage of user deaths than alcohol or tobacco. These deaths could be reduced even more by the availability of drugs with better purity.

elefantstn is right that the process got VERY dirty with Bork, but it's wrong to say the Democrats were Bork's only opposition (far from it, check the CATO archives from the period if you doubt me) although with video-rental records, it's safe to say that Democrats were clearly the dirtiest.

CATO (and Jim Ray, I'm chairman of the Ninth Amendment Foundation in my other life) opposed Bork in part because of his writings on the Ninth Amendment, which he called "an inkblot." The Ninth Amendment states:

"The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Doesn't seem like an inkblot to me! Plainly, the US constitution and especially the Bill of Rights -- no matter what Bork or (left-wing Democrat Senator) Joseph Biden or a variety of ignoramus-law-professors may say -- is not an exhaustive list of rights, but merely a starting point for the rights we SHOULD expect, and (as Jefferson called them) the Ninth & Tenth Amendments are "magnificent generalities." No, the right to privacy (and even the word, "privacy") never gets mentioned in the constitution, but IT DOESN'T MATTER! because the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and one of those "others" is privacy, like it or not. If you don't like it, I heartily suggest an attempt at repeal!

Of course, another of those 'other' rights is self-medication and general body-self-ownership, whether the Supreme Court, Congress, the states, and various lower courts agree or not. The tax-&-spend war on (some) drugs is un-American and morally wrong and wasteful, and it has provably-racist roots in the past and provably racist effects today, but nobody wants to admit it and honorably opt for repeal. Instead, they want me to be "reasonable," and spend even more money every April 15th on "treatment," which is a nicer version of prison, and will cost even MORE than too-many prisons letting violent offenders out to make room for more drug "criminals"!

It's funny how nobody wants to debate me on these points in an equal-footing situation. It's easy to find a law professor who will claim that the Ninth is "not important" and "means nothing" (just go to any law school & sit in on con-law if you doubt me) but find me one who thinks that the Ninth should actually be repealed and will debate me in an open forum! You can't? That's because they'd rather not think about it. I may make them mad, but I also make them think about it. The Supreme Court has never invalidated ONE LAW solely on Ninth Amendment grounds, and that's THEIR intellectual problem, not mine. I'm just a thorn in their sides on the issue, and they'll get the respect they want from me when they deserve it, not before! Ok, rant over, back to work. :)
JMR
(ESPECIALLY speaking only for myself today, even more than usual...)

"It is disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that Supreme Court justices and other constitutional interpreters have typically fled from the hard moral judgments called for by the Ninth Amendment."
-- Steven Macedo, _The New Right v. The Constitution_ p. 7.
(Go find and read this book.)

elefantstn is right that the process got VERY dirty with Bork, but it's wrong to say the Democrats were Bork's only opposition (far from it, check the CATO archives from the period if you doubt me) although with video-rental records, it's safe to say that Democrats were clearly the dirtiest.

CATO (and Jim Ray, I'm chairman of the Ninth Amendment Foundation in my other life) opposed Bork in part because of his writings on the Ninth Amendment, which he called "an inkblot." The Ninth Amendment states:

"The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Doesn't seem like an inkblot to me! Plainly, the US constitution and especially the Bill of Rights -- no matter what Bork or (left-wing Democrat Senator) Joseph Biden or a variety of ignoramus-law-professors may say -- is not an exhaustive list of rights, but merely a starting point for the rights we SHOULD expect, and (as Jefferson called them) the Ninth & Tenth Amendments are "magnificent generalities." No, the right to privacy (and even the word, "privacy") never gets mentioned in the constitution, but IT DOESN'T MATTER! because the enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and one of those "others" is privacy, like it or not. If you don't like it, I heartily suggest an attempt at repeal!

Of course, another of those 'other' rights is self-medication and general body-self-ownership, whether the Supreme Court, Congress, the states, and various lower courts agree or not. The tax-&-spend war on (some) drugs is un-American and morally wrong and wasteful, and it has provably-racist roots in the past and provably racist effects today, but nobody wants to admit it and honorably opt for repeal. Instead, they want me to be "reasonable," and spend even more money every April 15th on "treatment," which is a nicer version of prison, and will cost even MORE than too-many prisons letting violent offenders out to make room for more drug "criminals"!

It's funny how nobody wants to debate me on these points in an equal-footing situation. It's easy to find a law professor who will claim that the Ninth is "not important" and "means nothing" (just go to any law school & sit in on con-law if you doubt me) but find me one who thinks that the Ninth should actually be repealed and will debate me in an open forum! You can't? That's because they'd rather not think about it. I may make them mad, but I also make them think about it. The Supreme Court has never invalidated ONE LAW solely on Ninth Amendment grounds, and that's THEIR intellectual problem, not mine. I'm just a thorn in their sides on the issue, and they'll get the respect they want from me when they deserve it, not before! Ok, rant over, back to work. :)
JMR
(ESPECIALLY speaking only for myself today, even more than usual...)

"It is disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that Supreme Court justices and other constitutional interpreters have typically fled from the hard moral judgments called for by the Ninth Amendment."
-- Steven Macedo, _The New Right v. The Constitution_ p. 7.
(Go find and read this book.)

If that was the case then there would have to be a gradual increase in prices as the supply started getting shorter. That did not happen. The prices all of a sudden spiked up tenfold despite the fact that CA used seven percent less energy this year and then last year.

They spiked for a bunch of reasons. First of all, user rates were capped by the government, so there was no "run up" for ratepayers, and utilities could not pass on higher wholesale electricity prices to ratepayers. And under the market rules, PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E were required to buy all of their power through the CalPX. They could not enter into forward long-term contracts for energy. When spot market wholesale prices increased because of power shortages and increasing generation costs, the utilities had no option but to purchase the high-priced power. Many independent power generators were reluctant to sell power to PG&E, and SCE because of their resulting financial troubles, and the uncertainty of receiving payment for the power sold.

Add on top of this an increase in natural gas prices.

Also, electricity does not have a linear demand curve, people are willing to pay whatever they have to in order to have the lights on, so as demand nears supply, the prices go up quickly. With a cap on rates, there was no "warning" to ratepayers.

The Cato Institute predicted the result of California "deregulation" in 1997!. It was not the creation of a free market in energy, but an attempt to look like doing so while maintaining a regulatory structure that eventually stuck it to the ratepayers.

I'll have to believe you about California using 7% less energy this year than last year, but the pricing of California electricity is about peak demand, not average demand. California's generation capability decreased 2 percent from 1990 through 1999, while retail sales increased by 11 percent. To meet its demand for power, California relies on about 7 to 11 gigawatts of out-of-state generation capability, of which a significant portion is produced by hydroelectric power in the northwestern United States. Reduced hydroelectric power generation caused by unusually low water levels in the northwest resulted in a reduction of imports to northern California. Path 15, the high voltage transmission line connecting southern California to northern California, became congested at times, reducing the flow of surplus electricity capacity in southern California to meet shortages in northern California. So I'll bet that power demand peaks were higher then supply more often this year than last.

Yes, the Cato Institute is so Republican...that's why they sponsored Beyond Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies, Are Republicans Locked in a Cold-War Mindset?, and Republicans and Democrats Are in It for the Money, the Power, the Prestige.

Cato regularly speaks out against Republican attacks on liberty as well as Democratic ones. The Democrats do tend to be overachievers in this department, but the Republicans sure can do it as well.

Cato is a bit more realistic than, say, the Libertarian Party. It is my impression that the Cato folks assume that there is little chance of an effective third-party in the US, and that working to provide facts to the two existing parties and the public is the best way to move forward.

Yes, the Cato Institute is so Republican...that's why they sponsored Beyond Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies, Are Republicans Locked in a Cold-War Mindset?, and Republicans and Democrats Are in It for the Money, the Power, the Prestige.

Cato regularly speaks out against Republican attacks on liberty as well as Democratic ones. The Democrats do tend to be overachievers in this department, but the Republicans sure can do it as well.

Cato is a bit more realistic than, say, the Libertarian Party. It is my impression that the Cato folks assume that there is little chance of an effective third-party in the US, and that working to provide facts to the two existing parties and the public is the best way to move forward.

Yes, the Cato Institute is so Republican...that's why they sponsored Beyond Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies, Are Republicans Locked in a Cold-War Mindset?, and Republicans and Democrats Are in It for the Money, the Power, the Prestige.

Cato regularly speaks out against Republican attacks on liberty as well as Democratic ones. The Democrats do tend to be overachievers in this department, but the Republicans sure can do it as well.

Cato is a bit more realistic than, say, the Libertarian Party. It is my impression that the Cato folks assume that there is little chance of an effective third-party in the US, and that working to provide facts to the two existing parties and the public is the best way to move forward.

Yes, the Cato Institute is so Republican...that's why they sponsored Beyond Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies, Are Republicans Locked in a Cold-War Mindset?, and Republicans and Democrats Are in It for the Money, the Power, the Prestige.

Cato regularly speaks out against Republican attacks on liberty as well as Democratic ones. The Democrats do tend to be overachievers in this department, but the Republicans sure can do it as well.

Cato is a bit more realistic than, say, the Libertarian Party. It is my impression that the Cato folks assume that there is little chance of an effective third-party in the US, and that working to provide facts to the two existing parties and the public is the best way to move forward.

• The average life expectancy in 1900 was 47 years. Today it is 77, and rising.
• The infant-mortality rate has dropped from 1 in 10 to 1 in 150.
• "Poor" Americans today have routine access to a quality of housing, food, health care, consumer products, entertainment, communications and transportation that even the Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Rockefellers could only dream of.
• A farmer a century ago could produce only one-hundredth of what his counterpart is capable of growing and harvesting today.
• In the 19th century, almost all teenagers toiled in factories or fields. Now, 9 in 10 attend high school.
• Today's Americans have three times more leisure time than their great-grandparents did.
• The price of food relative to wages has plummeted: In the early part of this century the average American had to work two hours to earn enough to purchase a chicken, compared with 20 minutes today.

• The average life expectancy in 1900 was 47 years. Today it is 77, and rising.
• The infant-mortality rate has dropped from 1 in 10 to 1 in 150.
• "Poor" Americans today have routine access to a quality of housing, food, health care, consumer products, entertainment, communications and transportation that even the Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Rockefellers could only dream of.
• A farmer a century ago could produce only one-hundredth of what his counterpart is capable of growing and harvesting today.
• In the 19th century, almost all teenagers toiled in factories or fields. Now, 9 in 10 attend high school.
• Today's Americans have three times more leisure time than their great-grandparents did.
• The price of food relative to wages has plummeted: In the early part of this century the average American had to work two hours to earn enough to purchase a chicken, compared with 20 minutes today.

• The average life expectancy in 1900 was 47 years. Today it is 77, and rising.
• The infant-mortality rate has dropped from 1 in 10 to 1 in 150.
• "Poor" Americans today have routine access to a quality of housing, food, health care, consumer products, entertainment, communications and transportation that even the Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Rockefellers could only dream of.
• A farmer a century ago could produce only one-hundredth of what his counterpart is capable of growing and harvesting today.
• In the 19th century, almost all teenagers toiled in factories or fields. Now, 9 in 10 attend high school.
• Today's Americans have three times more leisure time than their great-grandparents did.
• The price of food relative to wages has plummeted: In the early part of this century the average American had to work two hours to earn enough to purchase a chicken, compared with 20 minutes today.

"Global liberalization", known to the rest of us as free trade, is a good thing. Freer markets, as proven time and time again, increase the standard of living on both sides of a free trade agreement by fostering production and consumption without the capital drag of duties and hidden taxes (usually in the form of trade concessions). Short-term job loss in specific areas are SWIFTLY offset by job growth in others, when true free trade is implemented. It amazes me that people ignore the obvious at their own peril. When trade barriers fall, standards of living rise.

Try to consider what it would be like if there were high taxes imposed on goods flowing from Long Island to Harlem or from Orange County to East LA. Do you think for a moment this wouldn't have a negative impact on those poor communities? Then why don't these people think this is the case between, say, Latin America and the US (and no, the argument of macro over micro here doesn't hold any weight).

Low taxes on corporations is a good thing. Yes, you read that right, A GOOD THING. Don't be fooled: NO corporation pays taxes, only CONSUMERS. The cost of corporate taxes are passed on to the consumers. All consumers, all the time. This HURTS the lower income families MUCH more than higher income families. Essential goods are taxed when the company that makes those goods are taxed, even when they are exempt from sales tax. Corporate taxes hurt low-income people, the poor, and it makes me sick to know that some college kids "pretend to defend" the poor by advocating high corporate taxes either in the form of direct taxes or trade barriers, when often they are just blindly following a group of jerks with their own hidden agenda.

Get the truth: www.cato.org

I suggest reading Just say "No" to Energy Plan from the Cato Institute. Here are some quick blurbs from the commentary:

"energy markets, like most commodity markets, are subject to boom and bust cycles. Energy prices after adjusting for inflation have been plummeting more or less for 15 years. Investors took money out of production and exploration budgets because profits were hard to come by. The bust suddenly ended last year, catching almost everyone by surprise, and the boom is now on. Investors are scrambling to expand supply, but capital investments take time...High prices = high profits = increased investment = price declines."

"...we're currently in the midst of a power-plant construction boom, with some 90,000 megawatts of new electricity capacity scheduled to come on line by 2002 and a staggering 150,000-200,000 megawatts by 2004. This will not only burst the electricity-price bubble but will probably produce an electricity glut in the near future. Similarly, so many billions are flooding into the natural-gas market today that futures contracts are being made at half the price of today's wholesale spot price. And high gasoline profit margins are inducing foreign refineries to enter the American market for the first time in decades and bringing new investment in domestic refining capacity as well. Barring some unforeseen supply disruption in the refining sector, gasoline prices will actually begin to decline slowly but steadily as the summer wears on."

I suggest reading Just say "No" to Energy Plan from the Cato Institute. Here are some quick blurbs from the commentary:

"energy markets, like most commodity markets, are subject to boom and bust cycles. Energy prices after adjusting for inflation have been plummeting more or less for 15 years. Investors took money out of production and exploration budgets because profits were hard to come by. The bust suddenly ended last year, catching almost everyone by surprise, and the boom is now on. Investors are scrambling to expand supply, but capital investments take time...High prices = high profits = increased investment = price declines."

"...we're currently in the midst of a power-plant construction boom, with some 90,000 megawatts of new electricity capacity scheduled to come on line by 2002 and a staggering 150,000-200,000 megawatts by 2004. This will not only burst the electricity-price bubble but will probably produce an electricity glut in the near future. Similarly, so many billions are flooding into the natural-gas market today that futures contracts are being made at half the price of today's wholesale spot price. And high gasoline profit margins are inducing foreign refineries to enter the American market for the first time in decades and bringing new investment in domestic refining capacity as well. Barring some unforeseen supply disruption in the refining sector, gasoline prices will actually begin to decline slowly but steadily as the summer wears on."

Read some antitrust history

A review of major antitrust suits (Standard Oil, American Tobacco, and Alcoa, etc.) reveals that the accused firms monopolized or "restrained" trade; on the contrary, the firms expanded outputs enormously, innovated continuously, and generally lowered prices for consumers.

Add to that the indictment of US Steel and IBM, which never lead to a finding of monopoly, but transfered millions of dollars from production to lawyers.

Now the ILECs ("Baby Bells")... they ARE a coercive monopoly, granted by your local government. Why can't I take my State to court for antitrust violations?

• Increased consumption of substance (currently a third of Americans have used Marijuana)
  
• Expenditure on substance increases because a.) demand for it is inelastic and b.) it becomes more scarce.
  
• Violent gang wars over illicit profits.
  
• People criminalized for activity that harmed no one but themselves.

the jury is still out if legalization of illegal drugs would result in a similar situation

It was tried - Alcohol Prohibition was a Failure and currently, canabis prohibition IS a failure. No matter how you look at it, the current stigma and treatment of people who like to cut off flowers and smoke them is a crime again humanity and nature. Period. Consider what prohibition gets you: an ounce of pot is worth more than an ounce of GOLD!!! If that isn't an invitation to for criminal element to step in I don't know what is.

There is one basic problem with the US system: the FCC considers airwaves public instead of private property. As such, they can "license" bands, and then continue their meddling. If one thinks about it, this gives great aid to the license holders, in this case mega-corporations. If the airwaves were treated like real estate, the licensees would have to watch their backs.

Here is a Cato Institute paper on the issue, titled "Property Rights in Radio Communication: The Key to Reform of Telecommunications Regulation." Obviously, it's about radio, but the same principles apply to TV.


*** Proven iconoclast, aspiring epicurean ***